Each week in the NFL fans are treated to varying degrees of extremes. Even a blowout can be entertaining. From one extreme to the other fans and NFL “experts” react on the spot and the morning after at the NFL action of the weekend. Here are some of the biggest overreactions to come from Week 5 in the NFL.
Tony Romo is Tony Romo
I can almost lose it on Romo after that game. While watching him amass 500+ passing yards and 5 touchdowns, you could see the wave of overreaction tidal over Twitter like never before. Just check out this tweet from the NFL Network’s Rich Eisen.
I was all too ready to bring the Romo fans back to earth but Romo himself beat me to the punch. No one can put together a Cowboys record-breaking performance like Romo did on Sunday evening against the Broncos and then single-handedly piss it all away with one costly interception. You could see it in his face as Rodney Harrison of NBC’s Football Night in America pointed out; Romo was preparing to try to not make a costly mistake late in that game. He’s made too many so far in his career that the idea he’d continue to do it has firmly implanted itself inside his head. While 506 passing yards and 5 touchdowns are very impressive, there’s no doubt about that, it’s a tough pill for Cowboys fans to have to swallow that those stats did not accompany a “W” because Tony Romo is Tony Romo.
The Browns are for real
Browns fans have every right to be excited over the 3-game winning streak the Browns are on right now. No one expected as much following their shipping of Trent Richardson out of town. The trade initially looked as though the team punted on the season and were just looking towards the future. Now, the Browns are 3-2 tied along with Baltimore and Cincinnati for the lead in the AFC North. Unfortunately for Browns fans, their last win came at the expense of QB Brian Hoyer, who had won the starting job over Brandon Weeden. Weeden now goes back in while the Browns face a brutal schedule ahead of them. In the next few weeks the Browns face the Lions, Packers and Chiefs. Then they’re rewarded with divisional play against the Ravens, Bengals and Steelers. Not likely that they’ll survive that stretch of games with more wins than losses so it would be best for the Cleveland fans to enjoy this winning streak while they have it.
Winless teams should have a fire-sale of future free agents
CBS Sports NFL Insider Jason La Canfora provided the “NFL Expert” biggest overreaction from Week 5 in his Monday column he suggests teams such as the Giants, Jaguars and one-win Vikings, unload their top-name players before free agency and stock-pile draft picks because the season is over for all of them already. He suggests the Giants trade Justin Tuck and Hakeem Nicks for draft picks now rather than risk losing them to free agency in March. Way to invigorate a team and power through the rest of the season.
Nothing will sound sweeter to Giants fans wondering when their team can actually muster a win than, “We’ve traded Hakeem Nicks to the Patriots for 2 picks in the 2014 draft!” I’m sure that will go over swimmingly. Also, as if Jaguars fans, all seven of them, aren’t suffering enough, he suggests the team go ahead and ship away Maurice Jones Drew for picks and try to sign him back in free agency in March.
How in the world does La Canfora think these deals will actually go down? That a player like MJD or Tuck gets cast off of a crappy, winless team even before the mid-way point and then will be so stoked to sign back with them months later? Has that ever happened in the NFL before? La Canfora also suggests that the Vikings, even though they’ve won a game and have just added Josh Freeman in an attempt to improve their offense, see if anyone wants to take on Jared Allen’s salary and he’d be so grateful in return he’d sign with Minnesota again in free agency.
That’s very likely to happen, about as likely to happen as La Canfora writing a column actually based on reality and made some sense.